College Basketball: 5 Things We Learned This Week

Kevin McNeill's weekly 5 Things
column breaks down what's important in the world of college basketball.

This week, we learned that...

1) Minnesota is once again a
factor in the Big Ten

After a huge win against # 9
Louisville, Coach Tubby Smith now has the Golden Gophers off to their best start
since 1976, when they began 11-0.

Granted the game, played in front of
a very sparse crowd in a football stadium in Glendale, Arizona, was the first
real test this year for Minnesota. It was only the second time they played
away from home, the other being a squeaker against Colorado State in Fort
Collins, and had so far only beaten up on the likes of state schools from the
Dakotas.

Still, the Gophers completely
neutralized Samardo Samuels, who fouled out after only making two field goals,
and committing four turnovers, and held the Cardinals to just 37% shooting
overall for the win. They made their free throws and held their own poise when
Louisville rallied down the stretch. In other words, they looked like a well
coached team that is ready for conference play to begin.

This is pretty
remarkable considering that the Gophers went 8-22 two years ago, before hiring
Smith. The very next year, Minnesota posted a 20-13 record, with many of the
same players, earning only their third 20 win season in ten years. Smith also
hauled in a nationally heralded recruiting class, a rarity in Minneapolis.

Technically, the
Gophers have not advanced past the first round of the NCAA Tournament since
their Elite Eight run in 1990 (the NCAA voided Minnesota’s tournament
participation in 1994, 1995 and their Final Four run of 1997 for academic
cheating). They have had only two appearances since then – in 1999 and 2005.
Minnesota also has not won the Big Ten since 1982 (Again, their 1997 title was
voided by the NCAA).

But that could all be
changing. The Gophers are very young; they start two freshmen and one
sophomore, Al Nolen, who is showing tremendous improvement over every facet of
his game. Smith also has another solid recruiting class coming in next year. A
Big Ten title may not be that far off.

2) Weak schedules make it hard to
know just how good some teams really are

Several teams have been receiving
votes in the AP and Coaches polls recently and are either inching their way
towards the Top 25 or are already ranked. Only problem is, they haven’t beaten
any real competition.

Illinois State may be undefeated, but
their best win so far came Saturday against Illinois-Chicago. In fact,
Illinois-Chicago is one of only two teams the Redbirds have faced so far – the
other being 6-4 Nicholls State – that don’t currently have a losing record.
Stanford and # 20 Clemson are also unbeaten but their best wins so far came
this weekend as well, against Northwestern and Miami, respectively.

Illinois may be 10-1, their one loss
coming against Clemson, but the only victory so far that the Selection Committee
will even notice come March came against Vanderbilt in November. The Illini
will play Missouri in St. Louis on Tuesday, so that game should tell us
something. Lastly, until their defeat this week at the hands of Texas A&M, LSU
had played – in order – Northwestern State, Centenary, Troy, Cal State
Fullerton, Grambling State and Nicholls State.

3) UConn – Gonzaga is just a great
game

The intriguing storyline about how
these programs both rose to prominence 10 seasons ago by facing each other in
the Elite Eight has been well covered by ESPN’s Andy Katz, deservingly so.
Gonzaga, considered a “Cinderella” in 1999, has since emerged as a perennial
power, making three trips back to the Sweet 16 and not missing the Big Dance
once. UConn for its part went on to win its first of two national championships
that year.

But what is also intriguing is just
how good these two teams have been in the three games they have played against
each other since. Saturday’s barnburner was no exception.

The game had everything. Big
rallies, momentum swings, AJ Price’s improbable 3 pointer to send the game to
overtime, players giving it everything they had on every possession – as if it
was closer to Easter than Christmas. There was also a sold-out crowd that was
absolutely thunderous in supporting the Bulldogs, despite the fact that the game
was played in Seattle, nearly 300 miles from Spokane. Heck, it even had a great
name, “The Battle in Seattle,” and an accompanying logo that covered what seemed
like most of the court.

It brought back memories of the
previous two meetings between these programs, and how good those games were.
The first came over Thanksgiving week in 2005, when Denham Brown hit a
turnaround jumper with a second remaining to edge Adam Morrison and the Zags in
the championship game of the EA Sports Maui Invitational. Two years later
Gonzaga got revenge by beating the Huskies, ironically enough, on a so-called
neutral court in Boston filled with UConn fans. Even more ironic was that Price
missed a potential game-tying three at the end of the game.

We can only hope these two meet again
in March.

4) The RPI continues to be a joke

Quick, what do Northwestern, Clemson,
Temple, Florida State and California all have in common? Give up? All are
better teams than undefeated North Carolina, if you believe the latest edition
of the Ratings Percentage Index.

That’s not all. For those readers
new to college basketball, you might be interested to know that, at 5-3,
including a 32 point loss to Evansville, Western Kentucky (RPI #20) is better
than Memphis (RPI #29), Arizona State (RPI #31), and Michigan State (RPI # 33).
In fact, 8-4 Rhode Island (RPI # 41) 6-3 Illinois-Chicago (RPI #44) and, of
course, a 5-3 Jacksonville State team (RPI #55), are also all far superior to
Louisville (RPI # 62), Notre Dame (RPI # 89) and UCLA (RPI # 75).

In other words, the sheer inanity of
the RPI in college basketball continues to be readily apparent. Yet, once
again, come Selection Sunday, few things will matter more in the minds of the
NCAA Tournament Selection Committee when deciding which teams can potentially
play in the Final Four, and which see their bubbles burst.

Obviously as the season progresses
and conference play gets underway, the RPI will begin to correct itself and will
somewhat resemble the AP and Coaches polls. But as long as I have a forum to do
so, I will never stop complaining about it.

Computers and sports just don’t mix.
I don’t care whether it’s college football (don’t get me started), the NFL
quarterback rating, which nobody outside of MIT’s campus fully understands, or
the RPI in college basketball. Is it so old fashioned just to judge teams and
players by watching the games?

5) Billy Donovan made the right
decision to stay in college

This week Reggie Theus became the
sixth NBA head coach to be fired within the first two months of this season,
when he was let go by the Sacramento Kings. He was just 24 games into his
second season. His predecessor, Eric Musselman, lasted just one year as head
coach.

It’s easy to forget that Reggie Theus
was once one of the hottest coaching prospects in the country prior to being
lured away to the NBA. He was hired following the resignation of legendary
coach Lou Henson at New Mexico State and transformed a 6-24 Aggie team into a
16-14 squad in just his first year. The following season he led the Aggies to
25 wins and the WAC championship before leaving for the pros.

In other words, he’s a good coach.
And he will not be unemployed for very long. But the fact remains that NBA
coaches are not given anywhere close to the latitude and time to build a team
that many college coaches take for granted. Where college coaches are given
almost total control over the direction of the program and the players they
bring to campus, most NBA coaches have to make do with simply what they are
given. They become easy scapegoats for inept GMs and executives that draft
poorly, botch free agency and trade away good prospects.

With NCAA coaching salaries at major
programs approaching parity with NBA teams, one has to wonder why any successful
NCAA coach would even consider leaving for the pros, considering what others,
John Calipari and now Reggie Theus for example, have already experienced.

With exceedingly fewer exceptions,
the best basketball coaches in America are in college, and they all would be
well advised to stay there.

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Background

Kevin McNeill is a freelance journalist based in Phoenix, Arizona. He has been a CHN contributor since August 2005, offering his take on the latest polls, match-ups, coaching moves, and inane NCAA rulings.